EU cash and Palestinian terrorism: why one man is determined to sue the Union

Date: 14/11/02

By Sarah Zebaida

After an ambush by armed Palestinian Authority police, Stephen Bloomberg is now a widower bringing up his five children while confined to a wheelchair. He says as the police were funded by the EU, it is ultimately responsible. In an unprecedented action he is claiming €l20 million from the Union for his ordeal.

STEPHEN Bloomberg and his young family were returning from a shopping trip when policemen sprayed their van with a hail of bullets. His wife Tehiya, who was seven months pregnant, died instantly; Stephen and his 14-year-old daughter Tsippi were left paralysed and are now in wheelchairs. Two of his sons miraculously escaped unharmed.

The two members of the Palestinian Authority's (PA) Police Force who opened fire on them claim they were acting under orders.

Stephen, 41, has now set a precedent by suing the body that finances the PA's police and whom he feels bears the greatest responsibility for his fate - that body is the European Union.

On 5 August, 2001, Bloomberg, his wife and three of his five children were just a few minutes from their home in the West Bank settlement of Ginot Shomron, when they were ambushed.

The family hadn't yet made their van bullet-proof and took the next safest option - driving in the middle of a three-car convoy.

Stephen Bloomberg had been listening intently to the 9pm radio news and didn't notice the policemen raise their weapons. Suddenly Tsippi started screaming: 'They're shooting at us!'

Stephen was hit by three bullets. Two pierced his abdomen, jaw and arm, the third penetrated his spine. He was conscious just long enough to know his pregnant wife was dead.

'She was sat there with her head back and I knew she had gone.

'I realised I had to stay alive for the sake of the children. Every moment felt like an hour until the ambulance came. When the paramedics arrived I could hear them saying on their walkie-talkies that a family had been hit, but I couldn't see what had happened to my children.

'I tried to get up but I couldn't move or feel my legs. By the time I reached the hospital, my pulse had gone.'

When Bloomberg finally regained consciousness in hospital, the first thing he was asked was where he wanted his wife's funeral to take place. He was then told that Tsippi, his eldest daughter, was also paralysed.

'It was only when Tsippi and I made it to the cemetery in our wheelchairs for the stone-setting ceremony, 30 days after the shooting, that I fully comprehended our new reality,' he said.

After a four-month stay in a rehabilitation ward, Stephen finally returned home - travelling past the scene of the attack.

'I've been on that journey so many times, tens of thousands of times. So the journey itself doesn't really bother me. It's more the day-to-day problems with all the disabilities. That's the hard thing - trying to manage a family of five without a wife and from a wheelchair.'

Despite the attack, Bloomberg and his family chose to remain in Ginot Shomron. The stunning view from the family home is of the countryside between Kalkiliya and Nablus; idyllic pastoral terraced fields filled with ancient olive groves.

Everyone in the small settlement is on first-name terms and neighbours are continually popping in and out of the Bloomberg home, helping out with cooking and babysitting, and trying to make tensions between Israel and the PA seem remote.

But there is no getting away from the fact that life has changed markedly for the Bloombergs.

While, statistically, Stephen and Tsippi are just two among thousands of other wounded and traumatised victims of conflict in the Middle East, they have taken the unusual step of preparing a court case.

Bloomberg believes that 'reckless' funding by the Union has helped finance 'a Palestinian terrorist infrastructure' and blames the EU for his plight.

Two Palestinian policemen were arrested for Tehiya's murder two months after the attack. Farid Azouni amd Samar Abu Hania allegedly drew their salaries directly from EU funds earmarked for humanitarian aid. They are both currently awaiting a military trial.

In the Tel Aviv District Court last month, Stephen's lawyers served the world's first writ against the EU on charges of supporting terrorism through negligent funding. The lawyers are asking for l20 million in compensation. Stephen's logic runs as follows: 'The people who fired on us were official Palestinian policemen and civil servants.

'But primarily I blame the European Union and others who have been sending large amounts of money to the Palestinian Authority without checking what's been happening to those funds.' He adds: 'Just take a look at the appalling Palestinian refugee camps and ask yourself 'has any of the money gone to these people?'

The EU has so far avoided the initial stages of this ground-breaking case by claiming diplomatic immunity. But in what amounts to a counter-attack, the head of the European Commission delegation in Israel, Giancarlo Chevallard, has accused Stephen's legal team of 'attempting to form a pre-trial public opinion in favour of their claim'.

Chevellard adds that 'the EU has every confidence in Israel's judiciary system'.

He points out that the Union has 'consistently and vigorously condemned each terrorist act against Israeli civilians'.

Meanwhile, External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten has repeatedly refuted claims that EU aid is being diverted to fund terrorism.

In a June statement to the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee, he said: 'We have taken the allegations extremely seriously. We have found no evidence of EU funds being used for purposes other than those discussed between the EU and the PA there is no case for stating that EU money has financed terrorism.'

And in a July letter to the Jerusalem Post, Patten wrote: 'The EU has no reason to be ashamed of its efforts to maintain the PA as a valid interlocutor for Israel, in order to prevent a slide into even greater chaos and anarchy.

'Our aid has been carefully monitored. It has also been subject to strict conditionality, to try to use it as a lever for reform.'

And so to the legal case: Bloomberg's 31-year-old lawyer, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, has a successful record of respresenting Israeli victims of terror, but expects no favours from the court which, she claims, is 'more interested in pacifying Europe than defending its citizens'.

She is currently negotiating with an EU representative to persuade the Union to accept the complaint papers without waiving its right to use the defence of diplomatic immunity. Darshan-Leitner has prepared herself for a long fight, if need be 'on the EU's home territory in Brussels'.

'If the EU had nothing to hide and its hands were clean, it wouldn't plead diplomatic immunity. It would go to court and make us prove our allegations,'she adds.

The EU has given the Palestinians €1.4 billion since 1994, but the lawyer insists that neither Brussels, nor the World Bank, nor the International Monetary Fund know exactly how the money has been spent.

Darshan-Leitner also makes a shocking allegation: 'The European Union is still paying [Fatah leader] Marwan Bargouhti's salary to this day, even though it has officially declared the Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade, which he is a leader of, to be a terrorist organisation.

'Europeans should know that their taxes are going towards blowing up Israeli cafes and buses.'

And German left-wing MEP Ilke Schröder maintains that up to 20 of annual EU aid has been misappropriated.

She has been mustering support for an investigative committee to determine whether Yasser Arafat's government has used 'covert techniques' to divert aid funds.

Darshan-Leitner alleges that 'the EU would prefer to believe that the money has been stolen for Arafat's private Swiss bank account rather than for funding the terrorist activities of the PA's police force'.

She describes the latter as the 'day version' of Fatah and the al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades. Documents seized from

Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah during 'Operation Defensive Shield' by Israeli forces 'undisputedly' back these allegations.

Darshan-Leitner points to 'bundles of evidence' detailing payments for different terrorist acts, including the attack on the Bloombergs, allegedly signed by one of Yasser Arafat's deputies.

She also claims that the PA deposits the funds donated from the European Union in to the Cairo Bank branch in Amman.

'Arafat records the funds deposited at one rate of exchange and then withdraws the funds at a ridiculously lowered rate - thus ensuring there is a difference of several million euro each month, which doesn't even need to be accounted for,' she adds. Patten insists that this is not true.

He told the Parliamentary committee, during the same address in June: 'EU contributions are paid in euros and they are converted into shekels by the Arab Bank the same day they are received at the market exchange rate we will continue with our budgetary support at the rate of €10 million per month.'

Perhaps surprisingly, Bloomberg insists that, despite the dreadful circumstances of the attack on his family, he is sympathetic to what he describes as 'the appalling conditions suffered by Palestinians in refugee camps'.

He has said he supports an independent Palestinian state and

commended Ehud Barak's 'courageous concessions' in the Camp David talks in June 2000.

'Ehud Barak made a very generous offer to Yasser Arafat two years ago which would have provided a peaceful solution and solved the problem,' says Bloomberg.

'This agreement included leaving most of the settlements and this part was acceptable to the Palestinians.

'In the end Arafat didn't accept the agreement based on the refugee issue. So the problem isn't the settlements, it's much wider.'

'We have a situation here which is absurd,' he continues. 'My parents in England are paying taxes. These taxes are going, in part, towards helping the European Union. The European Union is pouring millions of euro every month into the Palestinian Authority.

'Many of the millions of euro are being used to finance the Palestinian police force, which instead of doing what they are supposed to be doing - looking after internal security - are firing on innocent Israeli civilians.

'I ask that the EU stops funding a country which is dealing with terrorism. I also expect from the EU some sort of damages for what has happened to us.

'[The EU] has been indirectly financing a terrorist infrastructure, which has caused me to lose my wife, to lose the use of my legs and my daughter to be injured. I expect compensation for this loss.

'I think I have a very good chance of winning my case.'

• Stephen Bloomberg emigrated to Israel from Britain 20 years ago after graduating in physics from Manchester University.

He served in the Israeli Army as a paramedic and it was there he met a nurse named Tehiya, whom he married.

Last Friday (8 November), the Commission announced it would be contributing €55 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

The allocation forms part of the €237 million funding convention signed between the EU and UNRWA in September.

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